Metaphorical Expressions in Translation Process

The ultimate aim is to find out to what extent translation takes place through concept mediation as against word association, and whether translation at an expert level differs from translation by non-experts and novices in this respect.

The hypothesis being tested is the "cognitve translation hypothesis" first presented by Nili Mandelblit, who stated that "Increased difficulty can thus be interpreted as evidence for concept mediation.

Experiment Objectivity: to identify traces of domain conflict

Experiment material: items which do not tolerate literal translation; items to be compared are those that require a shift of domain and those require no shift of domain

Process

Results

Phase 1

Phase 2

A clear-cut division into similar domain versus different domain instances is difficult.

The compatibility with the global domain may attribute to difficulty of translation.

Translation difficulty for an idiom depends on the availability of translation equivalents which are equally conventional.

The think-aloud materail reveals instances of domain conflict in which the translator gets stagnated to the source language domain.

Authentic-like translation experiments do not give much support to the hypothesis that translation takes place primarily through word association

Considerations of global domain compativility also attribute to difficulty in translation and constrain the translation strategy.